


Nailed It

by Spinning_Mouse



Series: The Bets the Devil Lost [1]
Category: Daredevil (Comics)
Genre: daredevil bakes, it's a silly baking show on netflix, my friend made me do it, nailed it, this is a crack fic leave me alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:36:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14141076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spinning_Mouse/pseuds/Spinning_Mouse
Summary: Matt loses a bet, and much to his horror, ends up on a baking show





	Nailed It

**Author's Note:**

> Side note: If you only know the tv show, that's fine. This is a crack fic with no plot, you don't need to know anything about the comics. The only difference is in the comics Matt has something called Radar Sense, which is pretty much what it sounds like. Oh, they also mention stilt man, who is a c-grade villain that's mostly made fun of in the comics.

“So tell us your name, and- uh, your superhero name, I mean, and a little about yourself.”

Daredevil glared, as best he could, in the direction of the poor cameraman. The man’s heart was beating rapid-fire from nervousness. 

Neither Matt nor Daredevil cared.

“Well, I mean, tell us about cooking. You know, if you cook, or bake, or how much experience you have with that kind of stuff.”

This was hell, actual, real life hell. A giant camera sat in his face, harsh lights buzzed overhead, people in the back of the room whispered about make-up and angles and edits and _‘he looks so mad this is going to be terrible does he even know how to smile?’_

Right now, Matt was inclined to think the answer was no. It was probably a good thing his mask hid most of his expression.

He forced his jaw to relax. It would be nice to not have to visit the dentist after this over ground-down teeth.

“I’m Daredevil.”

Principles be damned, the second Matt got a chance, he was going to _kill_ Foggy Nelson.

***

It would have been nice if they wouldn’t laugh. Or at least, not laugh quite so loudly, and for so long. Jessica was struggling to breath, for Christ’s sake.

“A goddamn baking show?” She finally gasped. “Are you screwing with us?”

“I wish I was,” Matt muttered through his fingers. He’d let his head hang in his hands through most of the conversation so far. Somehow, it didn’t help.

Another burst of laughter made its rounds through each person. Matt risked lifting his head back up so he could make sure they all saw his glare. 

“How,” Danny started, pausing as he choked on his own laughter, “how did this even happen?”

“I...lost a bet to Foggy.”

“What the hell kind of bet did you make,” Luke chuckled, the most composed out of all of them. 

“Does it matter?” 

That was the wrong thing to say. All three of them immediately perked up. He didn’t need to see to know all three of them were smiling. 

Jessica leaned forward before speaking.

“It does now. Come on Murdock, what was the bet?”

Matt grimaced, but stayed silent. 

“Oh come one, we’re gonna find out one way or the other. Just spit it out.”

Matt held on to his silence, his sole lifeline in a storm of embarrassment. 

Danny started chanting under his breath, a rhythmic “tell us” repeated over and over. Soon Luke joined in, a smile in his voice, then Jessica, though she sounded more like a predator, a shark waiting for her moment to strike. 

“Look,” Matt finally relented as their voices got louder, “it wasn’t a big deal, it was stupid, it was…”

“It was…?” Danny prompted.

“We were just joking! Stilt man was causing problems, and Foggy made some stupid joke as I was about to leave, and it just spiraled after that.”

“Stilt man? Didn’t Spider man take him out the other day? I saw something about it online.” Luke said, clearly confused. 

“What was the bet, Murdock?” Jessica asked again, voice low and _far_ too happy.

Matt slumped down in defeat.

“We made a bet about whether or not I’d beat stilt man,” He groaned.

For a moment Matt wondered if he was going to have to perform cpr on all three of his “friends.” They were all choking and coughing and slapping the table as they fought for control. There was nothing Matt could do now but wait the storm out.

“You _lost_ to Stilt man? *Stilt man?*” At this rate, Danny might never manage to breath again. Matt found he wasn’t too torn up at the prospect.

“I didn’t _lose_ to him, he just...caught me off guard for a second, knocked me to the ground. Spider man showed up and finished him off at the same time. It was just bad timing.”

“Right, right. Stilt man kicked your ass so Spider man had to save it. Understood.” Jessica was silent for a second, then, “I winked, by the way. Thought you should know.”

“Thanks.” Matt drawled in response, as sarcastically as humanly possible. 

“So when exactly will this air? I gotta mark it in my calendar,” Luke asked. 

“I haven’t done it yet,” Matt grumbled. It was easier now that he was past the worst part of this conversation at least. The laughing had died down to only the occasional chuckle and the light tone of amusement in all of their voices. They wouldn’t find it so funny if-

Oh.

Hmm.

“What if you went on with me?”

This silence was heavy. Matt smirked.

“Welp, this was fun, see you guys later.”

Jessica jumped out her chair, scrapping it against the floor as she did, grabbed her jacket, and gave one casual wave before she was out the door. Luke started to follow, and was halfway to standing up when Danny grabbed his arm.

Of course it would never be enough to hold Luke if he didn’t want to be held, but it still gave him pause. 

“No,” He said flatly after turning to look at Danny.

“I don’t know, it might be fun,” Danny mused, “We might even be able to get them to do a superhero themed episode if we all go together. Might save Matt a little of his dignity.”

How did Danny manage to keep turning this back on Matt?

“You want Daredevil, terror of Hell’s Kitchen, to go on a baking show?”

“Come onnnnnn!” Danny gave another tug and Luke dropped heavily back into his chair. The wood groaned with the sudden stress, miniscule fractures popping up in the legs if the tiny sounds of cracking wood were anything to go by. 

“ _No_ ,” Luke repeated, “I don’t know anything about baking, first of all, and-”

“Neither do I!” Danny cut him off a little too gleefully. “That’s what makes it fun. Besides, we do this, Matt will owe us.”

Dread began to settle in the pit of Matt’s stomach. No no no, this was not what he had in mind. He wanted to spread the suffering around, not put more on himself. 

“You know what,” He started, “Luke is right, this is a bad idea.”

Danny and Luke tilted their heads towards each other. Matt couldn’t see their expressions, but he knew them well enough to know a silent conversation only they could understand was happening right now.

_Goddammit, I’m outnumbered._

“Murdock,” Luke finally said, “you owe us _big_.”

***

“I’m Nicole Byer, and welcome to Nailed It! The show the gives you _this_ , and raises you _this_. We take amatuer bakers and have them try to recreate professional cakes.”

Matt found the voice was easier to focus on than everything else. Even back here Matt could the buzzing of electronics and life, the scuffling of shoes on tile as camera people moved to get the best angles, the quiet voices of backstage employees.

Then there were the smells. Flour and milk and eggs and butter and creams and food coloring and fondant and chocolate and cinnamon and a host of spices he didn’t recognize plus a few dozen types of candy all pushed together, the scents mixing together in a dizzying array of sweetness that made it difficult to pick out any individual ingredient. There were undertones of other things, like the wood the shelves must have been made out of, but Matt couldn’t begin to guess what kind under the heavy perfume of the foods. 

It seemed like most of the items at the cooking stations were made out of metal, though he couldn’t give any more detail from this distance. With his radar sense he could feel out the shapes of the counters and ovens and bowls and pans, plus a few other appliances he could guess from the shape, like mixers and microwaves, then another collection of smaller utensils, not many of which were recognizable outside of spoons and knives. 

There was a table set across from all three stations with chairs, presumably for the judges. There were two large cabinets on either side of the judge’s table, but before he could get any more of a sense of them, someone was ushering him forward and out onto the stage.

It was probably good he couldn’t see the scene in front of him. If he could, he just might run in fear. 

They must look ridiculous, the three of them standing next to each other in full costume (except for Luke, who had apparently worn business casual). All three of them had also been given aprons to wear, which, according to Danny, looked amazing on them all, if a little small on Luke. Matt did not believe him. Though, if the apron covered the logo on his chest, maybe that was for the best. 

Maybe he shouldn’t have worn his most distinctive red suit after all.

“Daredevil, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage. I can’t believe this is real and you’re all here. It is real, right, I’m not dreaming?”

The same voice he’d heard doing that intro from earlier. She was a large, energetic woman who mostly smelled of hairspray. The two people standing on either side of her chuckled, along with a genuine chuckle from Danny and a forced one from Luke. 

“This is going to be a special episode of Nailed It, no doubt.” There was a slight pause while she turned her head towards Luke, who shifted a little awkwardly in place. Maybe she’d winked?

“Though, as usual, I’m Nicole Byers, and with me is famous chocolatier, our head judge, Chef Jacques Torres.”

The man standing to her left gave a small bow and a heavily accented hello.

“And for our guest judge today, we have Jean Armstrong popular blogger and youtuber for her amazing sweets.”

A petite woman to Nicole’s right raised a hand in greeting.

“I’m so excited to be here with you guys, this is going to be amazing.”

“Oh I’ve seen your cakes online before! Super cool stuff.” Danny said. Heat rushed into Jean’s face.

“Thank you,” She said in an excited voice, tinged with just a little bit of nervousness. 

“Super is the right word indeed,” Nicole started, “which is why for this round, Baker’s Choice, you better prepare yourself. Behind door number one, we have…”

She threw her arms towards the cabinet on her right. It leaked the sweet smells of vanilla and chocolate cake. The doors opened automatically, gears grinding together in the machinery pulling them apart. 

“Superhero cupcaaaaaaakes!”

Danny laughed while Luke whispered a desperate ‘oh no’ under his breath. With more than a little fear, Matt reached out with his radar sense, trying to understand what was in front of him. Three little cupcakes sat next to each other on a table, he knew that much from smell alone, but his radar sense was telling him strange things about the shapes.

“We have Hawkeye’s arrow, always hitting it’s mark, Thor’s mighty hammer (I wouldn’t try to lift it), and Iron Man’s iron helmet.”

_It’s an alloy,_ Matt thought dumbly. The shapes made more sense now, mini versions of the iconic gear of three avengers. 

“First up, you have to pick out which cupcake you’ll be recreating...now!”

Matt was fast, but Danny, mister I-ripped-out-a-dragon-heart, was faster. He picked up the roundest cupcake (the Iron Man one, Matt realized) and darted back to his spot. Matt couldn’t bring himself to do the same, not in front of all of these cameras. He could feel himself turning red under the mask already.

He picked up what he was pretty sure was Thor’s hammer. It has less small parts sticking out, at least. Luke grabbed the last one, returning to his spot at the same slow pace Matt had set.

“I like the detail on these,” Danny started, interrupting the hostess before she could talk, “like this mask is amazing, almost looks like the real one. And the hammer? Same light gray as the real one, the handle looks almost like real wood. The patterns on the hammer don’t look as intricate as the real one though. The swirls are great but I think the real one has more.”

_Bless you Danny._

Nicole cleared her throat, a little thrown off from the outburst.

“They are amazing cupcakes, and your jobs will be to recreate them down to the tiniest detail. You have forty five minutes, so let's get going!” There was a beat. “C’mon, the timer started, go go go!”

A sense of panic fell over the room as they rushed to their stations. He could hear the clicks as the other two turned on their tablets. Giving away his secret identity would almost be worth it so he could get a version of the recipe he could actually _read_. 

“I hope you’ve got a good memory, Daredevil.”

Danny’s voice, so quiet not even the cameras in his face would have picked it up, drifted across the room, above the clang of metal pots and pans and the jokes of the judges seated comfortably at their own table.

“Step 1: making the base of the cake.”

Matt smirked. He owed Danny a damn nice Christmas gift for this. Matt clicked on his tablet for appearances, then focused on listening.

It should have been simple, really. Bake a cupcake, carve it into the right shape, cover it with fondant, carve some decorations, and stick some modeling chocolate in to represent the handle. Matt had never been a big baker, but he cooked all the time. How hard could this be?

Flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and milk, right? Danny spoke quickly and haltingly as he tried to give directions and focus on his own work at the same time, but Matt remembered the amounts and materials he needed. Mostly. He was pretty sure he remembered it all correctly, anyway. It wasn’t like it was easy to focus in such an overwhelming environment. Luke sounded like he was playing metal drums with the amount of noise he was making.

Oh, he hadn’t washed his hands yet. Could he wash his gloves? Did he really _want_ to cook with these gloves? They’d had blood on them in the past. Well, it wasn’t like nobody knew what color his skin was. He had no distinctive tattoos. He ripped both gloves off and set them to the side to wash his hands. This was one step Danny had forgotten, which put Matt a little behind, but he would catch up.

How long was he supposed to leave it in the oven? About twenty minutes? Well, he’d be able to smell when it was done. With the original hammer cake in front of him he had a pretty good idea how it was supposed to smell.

The judge’s voices mixed in with Danny’s. Apparently Luke had melted his butter too much. Good to know. 

Wait, which knob on the oven did what? Matt turned them slowly, head bent, listening to the clicks. Only one actually clicked, with very limited options, the other moved smoothly in a circle. That was probably temperature then, the one that clicked was cooking options.

So which one was bake?

After spending far too long guessing which options were the correct ones, he finished mixing his batter and carefully slid the pan into the oven. He was careful not to overfill it like Danny had apparently done, according to the judges.

_I can’t actually see so it’s not really cheating. It’s not my fault if they talk so loud._

With that perfectly sound logic, he moved on. The fondant was pre made and the modeling chocolate was easy to find with its distinctive smell. Actually putting it together might be easier if he didn’t also have to listen to the hostess compare their butts.

At least she recognized his was better than Danny’s.

He worked with the modeling chocolate while he waited for his cake to finish. It was hard from sitting in the cool storage, but it started to cooperate after a minute of Matt rubbing it between his hands to create friction. After that it was relatively easy to shape it into a cylinder. That was the correct shape, probably. It might look a little weird if he started feeling up the original cupcake, so Matt relied on the accuracy of his radar sense. 

Finally, the cake was ready. The smell was nice, especially when he pulled it out of the oven and it hit him full force along with the blast of heat. Hopefully nobody thought too strangely of him as he gently felt around the surface. Relatively solid, a little spongy. Good, that was good. Of course it was too round; the only pans small enough he could find were round ones, but it was easy enough to pull out a knife and cut it into the correct shape. 

Or it should have been, at least. The cake got smushed down every time he pressed his knife into it, never truly bouncing back when he finished each slice. His concern only grew with each movement, until he found himself with a vaguely rectangular lump. 

“Twenty minutes left, heros!” Nicole called out. 

Not long enough to bake another one, then. Cursing under his breath, matt moved on to the fondant. All he had to do was throw this on top of the cake and smooth it down, then carve a few swirls into it. So he did that, dropping the fondant on top and pushing it down. The fondant gathered in bunches around each corner like cloth, refusing to cooperate. Matt had to remind himself not to grind his teeth together. He really couldn’t afford the dentist right now. The swirls were easy, at least. Hopefully they looked even a little bit correct.

“Five minutes!”

He gently pushed his chocolate handle into the center. He could hear the cake tearing apart around the chocolate and feel the rough texture and falling crumbs when he touched it. Gently, gently he kept going, until the chocolate his the board underneath his cake. The uneven way he’d pushed it in showed, and the chocolate tilted in the now too-big hole he’d made. 

Where was a criminal when you needed one? Why wasn’t anybody crashing the studio and demanding everyone’s cash?

“Hands up!”

Matt’s hands were disgusting and sticky. He took a moment to rinse them off before wheeling his cupcake, along with the original, out in front of the judges with everyone else.

“Ok lets start with Luke. Just a reminder, this is what you were trying to make. So lets see your perfect recreation!”

Luke spun his cupcake around, hunched in on himself a little with tension. Matt was going to have to get him a pretty good Christmas present too, wasn’t he?

“Ok, ok.”

The other judges mirrored the mediocre response. Matt could tell whatever Luke had done was lumpier than the original, and the smell was a little off, but it didn’t smell bad. The judges seemed to agree that it was pretty decent overall. The shape was weird, but the decoration was pretty good, according to them. The cake itself was a little dry, but good otherwise. Luke relaxed a little more with each comment. Apparently this was much higher praise than he’d expected.

They moved to Matt next. He took a deep breath before spinning his to face the judges. Somebody was probably dying out there, somewhere, because he was in here instead of out there doing his job. It was almost criminal, really, to keep him here. Maybe he could leave now, before they had a chance to speak. He could send a letter apologizing. Tell Foggy he’d technically fulfilled his obligations. Buy Danny and Luke some nice wine.

The judges didn’t say anything, not at first. No, first, they laughed.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh, but I kind of do. It looks a little more like a lump of coal than a hammer. What happened with the color? Why is it black?”

Matt tried to swallow away the sudden dryness in his mouth. 

“I, uh, couldn’t find the right color.”

He could hear Danny suppressing a chuckle next to him. Well, maybe Luke was the only person getting a Christmas present from him this year.

They liked how it tasted, at least. Thank god for his nose if nothing else.

Finally, the moved on to Danny, who spun his plate around with a flourish, holding his hands out to frame his creation.

“Nailed it!” He said.

The judges burst out laughing. Matt couldn’t help a little smile in revenge, even if Danny gave no indication of concern.

“This is from one of the early models of the suit,” he explained, attempting, and failing, a serious tone.

“ _Really_ early model,” Nicole said with another laugh.

Danny’s cupcake was too lumpy and the features were apparently bad enough to scare a small child, but the colors and taste were good. The guest judge-that Jean woman-gave him the highest praise. Matt rolled his eyes under his mask at the familiar fluttering of her heart. Now how was it fair if one of the judges had a crush on a contestant?

“The winner of this round is the one whose cupcake looked most like the original, and that was...Luke!”

Danny started clapping before Luke seemed to even process what just happened. Matt followed suit, if not quite so enthusiastically. Nicole held out something, with cloth and maybe a little cardboard...a chef’s hat?

“For winning this round, you get the golden chef’s hat, showing that _you_ are the one to watch. Go on, put it on!”

Matt pursed his lips trying not to laugh as Luke struggled with the slightly too small hat. When he finally got it to sit still, Nicole clapped.

“Alright, are you guys ready for round two? Follow me, lets go!”

They shifted a few steps to the right to stand in front of the other cabinet. Matt took the opportunity to lean over to Luke.

“Does this mean you’re making our birthday cakes from now on?” He whispered. Danny snorted. Luke sighed.

“I’m not the one who owes any favors.”

Fair enough.

The smell from this cabinet was more intense, somehow even sweeter than the last. His radar sense gave him a vague sense of something much larger. A full cake, clearly, but the shape was weird, almost like some sort of bust. Wait, a bust? Panic bubbled up once again, and Matt tried to focus a little harder to get a more detailed picture.

“Don’t worry how you did in the last round, because everyone starts from scratch in this round. Jean, would you like to tell our heroic bakers what they’ll be making next?”

“Of course, Nicole.”

Matt had a very bad feeling that Jean was smiling.

“You know, there are a lot of heros in this country, which we’re all very grateful for. But for me, and a lot of others, there’s one person who always comes to mind anytime somebody says ‘hero.’ I give you,” Again there was a flourish, and again the cabinet doors pulled open automatically, “A Captain America Cake!”

The panic was almost full blown now. Matt could sense more of the details now, the large shoulders, the straight nose, the little wings coming off of the bust’s head. This told him nothing about most of the details though. He had an idea what the colors were supposed to be, but it wasn’t like he pick out the right ones anyway.

God, he was so screwed.

“Holy-you have to be kidding me,” Luke said, voice strained as he cut out the obscenities they all wanted to say. Danny just sputtered, which quickly dissolved into more laughter. 

“A Cap Cake!” Danny called out. “I love it!”

“Now, I know this looks pretty daunting, but don’t worry, we’re gonna give you a little help in this round. Each one of you has a panic button at your station. If you hit it, one of our experts will come over to give you a full three minutes of help. And Daredevil, since you struggled soooo much in the last round,”

_I’m BLIND._

“You’ll get a little extra help. At your station you have the button ‘Pardon My French.’ If you hit this button when somebody else hits the panic button, that means Jacque will go over to help them, but only speak in French.”

Finally, it was Matt’s turn to laugh, not that it did much for his nerves.

“I can work with that.”

“Good, because it’s time to start. You’ve got two hours. Get going everybody, go make your cake!”

At least Danny was kind enough to continue his quiet verbal instructions for this round as well. He hadn’t exactly lied to Matt before, he just didn’t tell him when he’d picked out the wrong colors. A traitorous act, to be sure, but Matt knew he could at least trust him for the basic instructions.

They’d been given foam heads sitting on metal poles that screwed into a plastic base. It was a relief to know he didn’t have to bake the head, at least. He had to bake the body and neck, but as far as his nose could tell, the face was made with a lot of modeling chocolate, then decorated with edible paints to give the color, at least according to Danny’s instructions. He needed more fondant to decorate the base of the bust as well.

OK, start with the cake. Once again that was a simple process that he was relatively confident with. The instructions apparently called for multiple layers of cake, so he found several large, if shallow rectangular pans. He set the oven at the same settings he’d used before, though it would take closer to thirty or forty minutes for these to bake.

So what now? Modeling chocolate would make the most sense, right? He couldn’t decorate the head until the base of the face was there, and he couldn’t put the fondant on the body until the cakes were done (and cooled down, he now knew). So, modeling chocolate it was. 

It started the same as before, pulling off pieces that he warmed with friction between his hands until it could be molded into different shapes. But then...then he had to actually do something with it. He hadn’t actually seen a face for decades, how was he supposed to model one?

_Logic_ , he told himself, _just think it through_.

Ok, so a flat layer over the entire thing was a good starting place so no foam would show through. Then he needed a nose, those ridiculous cheekbones he’d heard so much about, eyes, ears, and the wings on the helmet. 

It was such time consuming work. His entire world became nothing but modeling chocolate. It stuck to his hands, the smell filled his nose, the shape under his fingers was the only real thing in the entire world. It felt mostly right. His radar sense told him the shapes were pretty similar. The ears felt like ears, the nose felt like a nose, the eyes were probably pretty similar to most eyes. 

A stinging in his nose threw him off. He ignored it for a moment, annoyed at the distraction while he tried to keep the helmet’s wings from falling off. Of course, eventually his brain caught up, and he realized what that smell meant.

He cursed under his breath as he spun around, pulling the oven open with a little too much force. He could hear the judges discussing what was going wrong at his station as they watched him panic. 

It wasn’t bad, really. They were only a little burned around the edges. The cakes were probably a little dry, but some prodding told him they weren’t crumbling apart. He could work with that. 

“Oh, the panic button has been hit! I repeat, the panic button has been hit!”

Matt jumped, senses scrambling as he tried to figure out what he’d missed. It was Danny, still leaning over with a hand on the counter. There was nothing obviously wrong. Matt wondered what Danny was having trouble with.

Then he remember his own button.

Then he smirked.

After a moment of hesitation, hand hovering as he decided which one to press, he slammed his hand down.

“Ooh, we have two buttons in play! Jacque!”

Matt could hear Luke laugh when he realized what had happened. 

“Good luck over there!” He called out. Danny looked to Matt instead of Luke in response. Matt waved.

It distracted Matt almost as much as Danny to listen to the judge speak rapid French. Matt could understand bits and pieces of it because of its similarity to Spanish, but the best part was just watching Danny’s response. He blundered around as he listened, desperately hoping to garner some sort of help from the chef’s hand motions. Jacque could have been speaking literal gibberish as far as Danny was concerned. 

“If it had been a Chinese judge you’d be sorry,” He muttered once the judge had gone back to his seat to laugh with his co-workers.

Danny was finally getting a little frustrated, it seemed. Matt thought about it as he walked to the pantry, picking out as much edible paint as he could find to bring back to his station. This would probably be the worst time to rub his minor success into Danny’s face.

Matt hit his own panic button.

He could practically feel the annoyance rolling off of Danny. It was _amazing_.

The guest judge, Jean, was the one who walked up to help him. 

“What do you need help with?” She asked with a smile in her voice. Matt pointed at his collection of food paints.

“Which one of these looks like the right color?”

Once the very baffled, but kind judge had left, he was starting to feel a little better. The cakes were cooled enough that he could set them around the head and layer fondant on top. He’d gotten the judge’s opinion on those colors too this time around. He still struggled with the fondant; it wasn’t smooth the way he knew it probably should be, but the shape felt like shoulders, and he knew the colors were ok, so he didn’t worry over it too much.

“Teeeen minutes! Better hurry up!” Nicole called out with entirely too much glee. 

Paint, he had to paint. He’d arranged the paints in a certain way after the judge had identified them so he could know which was which by touch. Blue first, for the helmet, then white for the wings. Were Cap’s eyes blue? Well, they were now.

“One minute left, you better be finishing up!”

The stench of sweat and stress had mixed in with the smell of food. It was incredibly unpleasant and distracting. Matt wanted to hold a rag over his nose, but instead he had to grit his teeth and try to put visual details on a cake with touch alone.

“Five...four...three...two...hands up!”

The energy level was low for all three of them as they moved their cakes in front of their stations. Matt had smelled a few different alcohols in the pantry, even a little bit of vodka. He regretting not grabbing some of that for himself. 

Nicole, evil woman that she was, still bubbled with excitement and energy. 

“Ready to show off your cakes? Too bad, you’re doing it anyway.”

Matt was proud of the tiny smile he managed in response.

“Luke, you first. Show us Captain America!”

The judges responded with a mix of laughter and snorting. Matt found himself zoning out a little, catching bits about good colors and decent shape but weird eyes and a lopsided helmet.

“Alright Daredevil, show us what you got!”

If he had any pride left, he wouldn’t turn his cake around. Then again, if he had any pride left, he wouldn’t have come on this show in the first place.

Nicole outright shrieked at his cake before dissolving into laughter. 

“That good, huh?” He managed. He was almost too tired to care at this point. Almost.

“It’s, uh, it’s something. Yeah, definitely something.”

“I feel like it’s staring into my soul.” Jean said. “And a little like it might try and steal it.”

Matt chuckled in a tired way.

“I’m not a big baker.”

“Yeah honey, I think we all see that.” Nicole said.

“The colors are good,” Jacque said, voice tight with stifled amusement, “and you do have everything you’re supposed to. The face could use some work, definitely. And the shape of the shoulders. And the eyes.”

_Pretty damn good for a blind guy, in case you all forgot._

He knew that wasn’t fair, since they didn’t know, but it felt vindicating to think anyway.

Danny, once again, presented his work with drama, though this time he went with jazz hands.

“Not bad, actually,” Nicole said, sounding nearly impressed. Matt closed his eyes. Shockingly, it didn’t help.

“Not as much detail as the original, but a decent likeness, good colors,” Jacque mused. Danny gave an exaggerated bow. 

“Thank you, thank you.”

Danny wasn’t getting a birthday gift either.

There were no surprises with the tasting. Matt’s was dry, Luke’s was decent, Danny’s was good and light. Matt accepted his criticisms as gracefully as possible with a nod.

“You all did...cakes, but only one of you really nailed it. The trophy for this round, goes to…” She paused for dramatic effect, as if everybody in the room didn’t already know. “...Iron Fist! Congratulations, you won the Nailed It trophy and ten thousand dollars!”

Danny whooped, throwing a fist into the air. The guest judge pulled out something plastic, then shot out a stream of paper with no warning. Matt couldn’t help but flinch a little, tensing to keep himself in place while paper smacked him and floated around him.

“Gonna donate the money, but this trophy? I’m keeping it forever.” Danny held up the plastic trophy as if it were real gold. 

Matt clapped, slowly, alongside Luke. He couldn’t even feel disappointed. Not now that it was finally over.

***

“You have to admit,” Danny said, waving his trophy around with one hand while awkwardly removing his apron with the other, “that was fun.”

Luke shrugged non-committedly while removing his own apron. They were slowly making their way out of the studio after what felt like an eternity. Normally they were supposed to give the aprons back, but the studio had allowed them to keep them as a special thank you for appearing. Matt had tossed his to the side immediately.

“I’m just trying to figure out my favor.” Luke finally answered.

“Maaaaaatt.” Danny tossed his apron aside and slid up to Matt, clearly giving up on Luke.

“C’mon, that was pretty great. What did you think?”

Matt kept walking, brow furrowed in thought. After a moment, he held his hands up as his mouth turned down into a frown.

“I think I forgot my gloves.”

**Author's Note:**

> Nailed it is a very real and very fun show on Netflix, which resulted in my friend somehow convincing me to do this silly thing. It may be stupid, but at least I had fun, lmao. I hope nobody took it too seriously.


End file.
